Federal and provincial politicians will be on hand as Irving Shipbuilding installs the last piece of structural steel at its new assembly and ultra hall production building in Halifax on Wednesday. (TED PRITCHARD/Staff)

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The ships haven’t yet come in, but renovations at the Halifax Shipyard are being celebrated as a milestone of the much-anticipated federal shipbuilding contract.

Irving Shipbuilding Inc. will install the last piece of structural steel at its new assembly and ultra hall production building at the Halifax facility Wednesday.

The company has invited federal Minister of Public Works Diane Finley, Nova Scotia MP and federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay, provincial Energy Minister Andrew Younger, Halifax Mayor Mike Savage and media to the site for the big event.

“It’s an important step,” company spokeswoman Deborah Page said Tuesday.

“It just means that the buildings are moving along and all the facilities are moving along. … There will be some other outside work in terms of land-level facility and stuff like that, and maybe some towers to service the ships and so on, but no other big facilities.

“This is kind of the last framework piece in the large facilities.”

The building, which the company website says will be more than four football fields long when completed, is part of a $300-million Irving modernization project to prepare for the $25-billion federal contract.

There are two other smaller buildings along Windmill Road in Dartmouth that are also part of the project, Page said. Work at those buildings, one of which is new construction, is further ahead due to their size, she said.

All three buildings are expected to be “weather tight” by the end of the year.

“We’re moving along, and it’s on schedule,” Page said.

“We’re still working towards a schedule where we see cut steel in September 2015” for Canada’s new Arctic offshore patrol ships, with production of Canada’s service combatant vessels expected to start around 2020.

The company received a $260-million loan from the provincial government to modernize the shipyard. The loan is forgivable based on whether the company meets job creation targets.

Employment at the shipyard is expected to peak in 2020 in the range of 2,000 to 2,200 people, the company has said.

Cliff Pickrem, president of Local 1 Unifor-Marine Workers Federation, says his 1,000 members are anxious to see the company meet its milestones and get to work on the ships.

“It’s not coming as fast as they thought,” Pickrem said.

“I saw television ads, you know: ‘Come on home, boys, you got 30 years of work.’ Well, 30 years work in three years time.

“We’ll have to wait and see what takes place. … It is a lot of work and it will turn into a lot of work if everything is successful, but we’re not sure how successful everything is going to be yet.”

In 2011, Irving Shipbuilding was awarded the exclusive right to negotiate with the federal government to build the naval vessels. So far, the company has an umbrella agreement with the government and a $9.3-billion contract for preparation and design work.

The umbrella agreement says the company “has no right to any resulting contract nor any right to any work whatsoever under this agreement,” The Chronicle Herald reported in 2013.

It also says the federal government may add or remove whatever work it wants from the planned purchase and will hire a consultant to determine the company’s capabilities and whether it is meeting benchmarks along the way.

Pickrem pointed to the federal government’s cancellation of plans to replace the naval supply ships HMCS Preserver and HMCS Protecteur as cause for concern. That project was shelved in 2008 after the federal government determined the shipyards’ bids were too high.

“We were awarded the umbrella agreement, the right to build the new combatant vessels and the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, but … the company has to meet the criteria for the cost and everything to go along with it.

“Until they do that, they’re not really awarded a vessel. They’re just trying to get the infrastructure up and running, and by late 2015 they should have it. Then, if we’re lucky enough to be awarded the six offshore boats, we’ll be ramping up.”